DmC Devil May Cry -Stairway to Heaven-
by TWOxACROSS
Summary: Set six months after DmC Devil May Cry, the story follows Dante and the Order's continued struggle against the demonic influence that still pervades Limbo City. While a cold war brews between the Order and the remaining demons amidst a city recovering from disaster, Dante himself carries an embattled soul, worried that the devil within may one day become too much for him to handle.
1. Mission 1 Bad Neighborhood

**DmC**

[Devil May Cry]

- Stairway to Heaven -

Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.

Mission 1

[Bad Neighborhood]

Gunfire rang out within the streets intertwining through the concrete jungle that was Limbo City. A lone police officer rushed down the sidewalk, turning back momentarily to fire off several rounds at her pursuers. It was hard to make them out in the nighttime, but the officer knew whatever they were they weren't human. The bullets tore into black, leathery flesh, but otherwise did little damage to the figures chasing her, aside from an ink-like liquid spraying from the wounds. They screeched as they lumbered closer on thin legs, dragging large rusted blades along the concrete. The officer took off into a sprint again, reaching for the radio strapped to her shoulder.

"This is Officer Portinari requesting backup at the…south corner of Barghest and Fifth! My partner is down and the assailants are pursuing me!" she yelled into her radio as she rounded a corner, thinking it led to another street. Unfortunately for her, it led into an alleyway. "Shit…"

The officer slowed from a run to a slight jog before stopping entirely. The back end of a laundromat blocked her path forward. When she turned around, the pursuers were already filing into the alleyway, but they paused a few meters way, as if waiting for something. The officer raised her pistol, and finally got a good look at the figures underneath the light of a streetlamp. Vaguely humanoid, but with glossy black skin, the figures were gaunt, with slim limbs that looked like they were barely able to support their stocky torso. One arm was replaced with a large, rusted razorblade that pivoted at the elbow, and their faces lacked many features besides large tufts of feather-like hair slicked back off the top of the head, and a set of human-like teeth with no lips to cover them.

Although it had been several months since the monstrous disaster in Limbo city that leveled several city blocks, many still didn't believe in the whispers of demons, chalking it up to mass hysteria. Not even in the face of them, like this officer was, could some come to terms with the fact that demons walked among the whole of humanity, still lethargic after being roused from the sleepy illusion the demons used to control the world.

The demons' heads twitched ever so slightly, but they otherwise kept their "gaze" on the officer. She took a deep breath as the nightmarish figures moved to the sides of the alleyway, making way for yet another of her pursuers, the one who killed her partner moments earlier. It wore an elliptical, paraffin-colored mask with the engraving of a static, devious grin. Its toned body was much more human in appearance, and it wore only a tattered skirt, which brushed against the bloodied swords it held low in each hand.

The officer screamed, unleashing a volley of lead towards the masked figure, who simply swiped its swords back and forth in front of itself, deflecting each and every shot with little effort. The masked devil growled, and rushed up at the officer, holding its sword to her neck as the other figures trampled up behind it. The officer's gaze darted around her, and she swallowed hard in the realization that she would die there, surrounded by grotesque figures.

Suddenly, a three-pronged claw clamped down on the head of one of the dark-skinned figures situated in the back of the group, and it was jerked violently out of the officer's view. At the mouth of the alley a man reeled the demon towards him with a dark chain, and as the monster came close, he caught it under his left arm, wrenching its neck in a chokehold. The officer watched as the demon fruitlessly struggled in the young man's grasp. He had to be strong to do so, but who was he? She couldn't make out his face; the hood of his black leather coat obscured most of his features, save for a subtle grin, lit up by the torched end of a cigarette between his lips.

"You should really be careful, miss, this is a _bad neighborhood_ after all," the young man said, tapping the tip of a silver blade he held in his right hand against the dirtied pavement.

The group turned its attention away from the frightened officer, and towards the hooded young man.

"Daaaaaannnteeeeeee…" the demons growled at the man.

"That's me. Please, no autographs…" Dante replied with a smirk.

The demons took off into a quick stride and a shrill howl pierced the night. The man closed his arm tightly around his captive's neck, and after a muffled crunch, the head fell off with a trail of black ooze. He released his grip on the rest of the body and let it fall limply to the ground.

"A bunch of stygians, though? This'll be easy," Dante said, a hint of disappointment accompanying his words.

The young man gritted his teeth, clenching down on his cigarette to secure it, and then he took off toward the group of monsters dragging his sword behind him. He quickly cleaved through the first demon's torso, and it crumpled to the ground. Another immediately took its place, and swiped its armblade at nothing as Dante leapt forward, kicking off the demon's head and boosting himself higher into the air.

"C'mon up guys, there's a _great_ view!" Dante jeered, swinging a long, curved blade beneath him and into the rushing group of stygians. A burst of spiraling blue wind shot up from the ground, blasting the cluster of fiends up into the air, where the man then spun the weapon overhead. The curved blade of the spinning scythe ripped cleanly through the demons, the black ink that comprised their bodies splashing along the walls of the alley. As the wounded bodies fell to the ground, the man plummeted downward with his sword parallel to the pavement, cleanly bisecting a demon below him from skull to crotch.

Two more stygians rushed forward, and Dante tossed his sword high into the air. To avoid the stygian's incoming attacks, he retreated with a hop backwards, reaching under his coat and producing two pistols from shoulder holsters. He aimed them squarely at the demons and peppered their torsos with gunfire, firing off rounds faster than any pistol should be able to. The demons staggered backwards, convulsing as they took the barrage of lead, while the hooded youth slowly swaggered forward. He quickly replaced the pistol in his right hand to its holster and caught his sword as is fell back to the earth, swiftly going on the offensive and cutting down the stygians.

Both stygians fell to the pavement, one dissolving into dark sludge, the other seizing as it attempted to climb back to its feet. Dante stabbed it through the chest, lifting it up off the ground with one hand, and then pressing the muzzle of the pistol in his left hand up to the demon's head. Unleashing another volley of fire, the bullets blasted the demon's head away in chunks, leaving a stump spurting murky ooze as the body fell limp. Dante swiped his sword to the side, tossing the stygian's corpse off the end of it, and then raised his pistol to the masked demon.

"You're next, chuckles!" he said, loosing a barrage of gunfire at the demon. Predictably, the demon spun its swords ahead, creating a solid wall of steel that deflected each round the young man fired at machine gun speeds. "Typical dreamrunner bullshit," Dante muttered, relenting on his assault as he holstered his pistol.

"Alright, let's do this the old-fashioned way. You wanna get cut in two? I can make that happen!" Dante pointed his sword towards the demon he addressed as a dreamrunner.

The dreamrunner's head cocked sideways, and he rapped the tip of one of his blades on the concrete, generating a loud clanging noise. Splashes of the black ooze formed on the alley's walls and floor, and more stygians climbed out from the puddles. "Afraid to fight me on your own…? I would be too," Dante said lowly.

The officer felt a slight wave of pressure fly past her, originating from the young, hooded man's position. She swore she could hear a sustained, agonized wail, but it was so faint, as if it was coming from some far off place. The same blotches of black ooze that pooled on the alley walls appeared on Dante's body. The red dress shirt he wore underneath his coat tightened to his form, with the collar reaching up over his neck. The hood covering most of his face tightened around his head, turning into a slick, pure black shape that dissolved features like his nose and ears. The brim of the hood itself formed sharp white teeth that reached the sides of the head, almost near the back, which met with a matching set that formed out of the red dress shirt that continued crawling over his jaw. The new set of demonic teeth chomped closed, biting the cigarette between the man's former lips in half. As the lit end of the cigarette fell to the ground, it illuminated the now glossed and leathery skin the man's coat became, with the hemline having changed into something resembling thick patagium, while the seams of the coat itself hardened into the digits that separated those membranes.

"Oh Lord…" the officer gasped.

The stygians surrounded the demon that stood where a man had moments earlier, and readied for attack. An extremely bloodshot left eye peeled open from the man-turned-demon's pitch black head, and suddenly he was impaling a stygian with his silver sword, sliding them both into a wall. The stygian struggled against the blade in its torso, but didn't fight long when the man-demon's clawed hand clenched the demon's face, and tore the head from the body, which immediately melted into a puddle of ooze. The man-demon swung his sword in a wide horizontal arc, hewing right out of the concrete wall and smashing away the group of demons that had huddled behind him.

The man-demon's right hand twisted into a three-pronged claw, and he reached out for a stygian that fell against some trashcans. The man-demon's arm extended grotesquely towards the stygian, where the claw closed around the stygian's neck. With a ferocious jolt the stygian was pulled close to the man-demon. After the other stygians rose to their feet, they swung their rusted armblades, but the man-demon held tightly to the figure he had around the neck, and used its body to shield himself from their blows. The stygians attacked relentlessly, hacking away at their own comrade as the man-demon raised it to meet their blades in the air. Black ooze poured from the stygian's body, and its limbs soon fell apart, no longer able to take the punishment its allies involuntarily gave it. The man-demon dropped the broken stygian, and the silver blade reappeared in his hand, gleaming in the moonlight.

There was a low growl, and the dreamrunner leapt into the air with its blades raised, jumping over the other stygians, finally willing to take part in the battle. The man-demon stepped back as the tips of the dreamrunner's blades sang past his face, and then listlessly swiped his sword in front of him to parry the dreamrunner's follow-up attack. A stygian attempted to flank the man-demon and strike at his back, but he quickly turned on his heel, cleaving through the stygian's torso and immediately turning back to face the dreamrunner in one swift motion. The dreamrunner and the man-demon continued their attacks, sparks flying as the clash of metal echoed through the alleyway. Another stygian attempted to flank, and the man-demon turned, piercing its torso with his blade. The man-demon pressed his hand down on the stygian's shoulder as he twisted the blade, and then slowly raised the sword up through its chest, past its collar, into its neck, and then quickly sliced through the skull with a quick snap that started at the chin.

The stygian fell, melting onto the pavement as the dreamrunner let out a long growl, and dove headlong into a distortion in the air between it and the man-demon. The alley fell silent as the man-demon's head sharply twisted about, surveying every direction possible with quick, seizure-like motions. The sound of rushing wind came from his left and the man-demon raised his free hand, catching the dreamrunner's sword at the blade as it reappeared from another distortion.

"…Get some new tricks…" Dante's distorted voice emanated from the man-demon as it stared down the dreamrunner with its bloodshot eye.

Bright red blood seeped out of the man-demon's clenched left hand as the dreamrunner jerked its hand back, unable to release its sword from the man-demon's grasp. The man-demon chuckled as he swung his sword cleanly through the dreamrunner's arm, severing the limb from its body with a wet snap. The demon stumbled back as inky slime gushed from its shoulder. The man-demon flipped the dreamrunner's sword, still clenched by its severed appendage, and then caught it by the forearm. He lurched forward with an unsettling titter, holding both his silver blade in one hand, and a severed arm holding another sword in his other.

The dreamrunner swung its remaining blade, but it was easily slapped aside, knocking the demon off-balance. With his opponent defenseless, the man-demon rained down a series of unrelenting blows, hacking away at the dreamrunner with both blades, alternating between them as he did so. Each attack sent the dreamrunner lower onto the pavement, while each raised blade, which made way for the other to come down, threw black ooze into the air. The man-demon grunted with each downward strike, and carried on doing so until the dreamrunner was little more than chunks of leathery flesh and a pool of black goop.

"Holy…shit…" the officer stammered under her breath.

The man-demon's featureless head turned sharply towards the utterance, glaring menacingly at the officer with its one, bloodshot eye. The officer slowly backed up in fear, but the man-demon noticed the attempt to flee, and saw it prevented by throwing the dreamrunner's severed arm and sword into the wall next to the officer. The tip of the blade pierced the wall, and the arm dangled lifelessly from its grip dripping ink on the ground.

"Oh God! Please…don't kill me!" the officer fell against the wall behind her, sliding down and raising her hands between her and the snarling creature as it took an awkward step forward. "Please! Whatever you are!"

The man-demon halted at the plea, and stepped backwards holding its free hand over its face. His head shook violently in protest as he growled, and he slammed the silver sword in his right hand on the pavement. The man-demon reeled his head back and screamed shrilly into the night air, its gaping maw opening wide. So wide in fact, the officer could clearly see the second, human pair of teeth behind the first set. The man-demon continued screaming skyward, and the exclamation grew less shrill as the figure's jaw opened ever wider, revealing the face of a screaming young man inside. The top of the demonic jawline slid past the young man's nose, then eyes, and continued over his forehead until it slipped off the top of his head like a hood, resting at the nape of his neck. The demon's crimson bottom jaw slid off the man's chin as it turned into a black liquid, just as the rest of the figure's skin did, falling to the concrete with a gelatinous splash.

The man-demon was gone; nothing more than a quickly dissipating puddle of black ooze in the alley, and all that remained was the hooded young man, Dante, from before. However, with his hood hanging off his shoulders now, his pale white hair shined in the moonlight. He cocked his head to the side as he stopped screaming, and then violently spit a wad of the same black liquid from his mouth.

"Ahh, it got in my _mouth_," Dante complained.

"Are you okay?" a soft voice asked from the inlet to the alley.

Dante turned to address the voice, reaching behind his back and placing his sword there, where it firmly hung without any regard for gravity. "Yeah…shit's nasty, though."

A young woman covering her own head with the hood of a pale blue sweatshirt cautiously stepped inside the alley. "That's not what I was talking about," she said, pulling a can of spray paint from her belt.

"No, I got it," the young man replied, scanning the area for any more hostiles.

"You looked a little…upset there, for a moment," the girl said coquettishly, shaking the can vigorously as she approached a bare wall in the alleyway.

"Nothin' I can't handle." That was a lie he'd told himself far too often recently.

The girl reached up as high as she could with the spray can in her hand, and started painting a large red circle on the brick wall.

"H-hey!" the officer said, climbing to her feet. "You can't do that!"

"Easy there, chief. I wasn't kidding when I said this was a bad neighborhood. All kinds of demons hang out in areas like these. Some spots are still a little closer to Hell," Dante explained.

"Demons…? Hell? You can't be…" the officer trailed off incredulously.

"What? You thought all that crazy shit that happened here six months ago was a bad dream or something? Demons have been screwing with us all this time, for thousands of years. We just got out of from under their thumb."

"I…just got transferred to this city a couple months ago…" the officer stammered.

"Yeah? Well, believe me, this city is _crazy_ with demons," Dante alleged.

"Sure, and what the hell are you? Huh?" the officer asked, scowling.

"Heh…I'll let you know when I do." The young man snickered.

"Don't mind Dante, he gets cranky when he's hung over," the young woman said, continuing to paint smaller glyphic designs inside the circle she formed.

"And what the hell are _you_ doing? That's vandalism, y'know!" the officer turned to the girl.

"Fuck lady, we just saved your life, and you wanna cuff her for drawing on a wall?" Dante scoffed.

"I could probably slap you with a vigilantism charge…"

"…for chrissake." Dante shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"You got a permit for those weapons, too?"

"I don't think they hand out permits for magic weapons…" the girl chuckled, turning away from her completed painting: a circular pattern with smaller designs lining the inside of its circumference, with a multi-pointed star at its center. "Look, Dante wasn't kidding when he said this was a 'bad neighborhood', officer."

"Don't bother, Kat," Dante said dismissively.

The young girl Kat ignored her companion's half-hearted protest. "Demons used to control us from a dimension halfway between our world and theirs. Once we took out the demons' leader that dimension fell apart, but there are still these hotspots all over the place, where demons like to hang out. If we don't do something about those hotspots, the demons will spread their influence and it will get bigger, which will just be more work for us, and put more people in danger.

"This thing I painted is a warding glyph, it'll suppress the demons around here so they won't show up again; or at least nowhere near as many will. I'd appreciate it if you guys would try to hold off on painting over them, it's really not helping. We need to get a lot of these put up all over the city, and it's gonna get annoying having to go back and redo them when I thought we were done."

The officer scanned the area nervously as she half-listened to Kat's exposition. In her head, the officer was hung on a name she had remembered hearing.

"Wait…Dante…? You're that terrorist!" the officer declared, her face taking on a determined countenance.

"Yeah…I get that a lot." Dante smirked.

The officer raised her pistol in earnest, but as soon as she pulled the trigger, Dante was already standing face-to-face with her. Dante gripped the officer's pistol tightly, aiming the bore into his chest, where the round loosed itself.

"You think I'm a terrorist…? After I just saved your sorry ass?" Dante growled, ignoring the sharp but fleeting pain the bullet left him with.

He slowly started to lift the gun upward against the officer's protesting struggle, tearing it from her hands and then swiftly taking a step back.

"Y'know who reported all that shit about me being a terrorist? Bob Barbas - demon." Dante sneered. "They didn't like that I was getting so close to taking them out…tried to plaster my name on the air and get me locked up."

"_Bob Barbas_, the news giant? A demon?" the officer questioned nervously. "You expect me to believe that?"

"You can believe what you want, but that's the truth sister. Barbas even ran his own personal prison," Dante said, swaggering back and forth in the alley with his explanation.

"Barbas was a blowhard news anchor; he wasn't connected to any prisons." The officer shook her head.

"None that you know of," Kat replied. "I suppose you probably heard about the reappearance of hundreds of people from unsolved missing persons cases? Those were Barbas' prisoners, and if you ask them what happened, you'll probably get similar stories about a prison. They won't be pretty either."

"Half the shit those reports say about me isn't true…" Dante interrupted.

"I know it might be hard to believe, but we're - The Order - we're the good guys. Everything we had been saying for years was true, but the demons didn't want you to listen. They wanted you to stay asleep…thinking you were going insane if you ever believed the truth," Kat muttered, her glance darting away as she put a comforting hand over her arm.

"Maybe do a little more detective work before you start pointing your gun at people, huh lady?" Dante said, offering the officer her sidearm.

The officer hesitantly took the piece. "I have a name, you know," she said snidely.

Dante glanced at the nametag on her vest; B. Portinari.

"Sorry 'bout that, Officer…Ordinary."

"'Portinari'…it's Italian," she corrected.

"Oh! Awright, I like pizza," Dante said matter-of-factly.

Officer Portinari furrowed her brow while flashing an uncomfortable smile. "That's…congratulations."

"Okay, we're all done here Dante," Kat interjected, saving his companion from embarrassment. "You're okay, right officer?"

"Uh…yeah…I…" she responded, trying to take in all of events of the night.

"Good! And like I said, please try not to clean off those wards, it's the only thing keeping this city from going to hell again," Kat said walking past Dante and out of the alley.

"Yeah…sure," Officer Portinari said.

Dante gave the officer a lazy salute and then quickly followed behind his hooded friend. The officer watched as the sword on Dante's back slowly disappeared in a dull swarm of light, and then she glanced at the ward Kat had painted on the alley's wall. She could have sworn the red paint was glowing slightly, but she preferred to believe it was her eyes playing tricks on her in the failing light of nighttime.

"Well, that could have gone better," Kat said as she and Dante walked down the sidewalk.

"What are you talking about? I killed the demons, you put up the ward. We're all good, aren't we?" Dante said, reaching into his pockets and pulling out his cigarettes and lighter.

"I'm talking about that cop. You could have been a little nicer to her," Kat lectured.

Dante brought up a cigarette and pinched it between his lips. "Pft, so could she," he said, lighting the tip of the cigarette, and then snapping the top of his lighter closed.

"I mean it Dante. We've been having trouble as it is, maybe we could use someone like her working for the city. We could find way more hotspots a lot faster. The Order hasn't been operating at well as it could, not since…" Kat stopped herself from finishing the end of her sentence.

Kat tried tirelessly to keep the Order together, despite the deaths of most of the members at the Limbo branch and…his disappearance. Dante remained the Order's sword, cleaning up demons wherever they reared their heads, but the organization lacked much of its previous intelligence gathering capabilities. For now, they operated mostly on rumors heard on the streets. Even though demons were operating out in the open less since Mundus' defeat, they were still visible to everyone. The problem arose when people refused to believe the things they saw, and the demons capitalized on that disbelief. It resulted in a cold war between the Order and the remaining demons, waged in the city struggling to get back on its feet after a disaster.

"Yeah, sure…" Dante said, inhaling deeply on his cigarette, letting the warmth of the smoke burn and choke the fury that still bubbled in his chest.

"How are you doing?" Kat asked, trying to inquire about Dante's hidden concern without making it important.

"Fine," Dante lied. It was getting increasingly more difficult to smother the rage that swelled up inside him whenever he used his Devil Trigger. It was getting difficult to stomach the hate-fueled violence the man-demon performed with Dante's body. He was worried he was losing control, and he was worried what the man-demon might do if it ever broke free from him.

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right Dante?" Kat said, looking his way.

"I know, and when I've got something to talk about…I'll let you know." Dante took another deep drag from his cigarette, trying to ignore the flashes of the man-demon's grinning countenance that flashed in his head.


	2. Mission 2 Order Among Chaos

Mission 2

[The Order Among The Chaos]

A few days passed, and Dante and Kat continued their slow, uphill battle against the demons. Small areas were liberated from demonic influence, and the Order again was a common whisper among the populace. FEMA was doing all it could to restore infrastructure to the city, while the federal government assisted the local emergency services as they continued cleaning up debris near where the Silver Sacks towers collapsed. In the wake of Mundus' appearance and defeat, stories broke of a terrorist attack hoping to bring down banksters allegedly operating from the within the firm, among the accused was one Kyle Ryder, the human vessel of the overthrown demon king Mundus. Fortunately, with the late Bob Barbas' propaganda network in shambles, the Order was mostly cleared from accusation. A few theorists continued to hold true that the Order was behind it all, most likely demonic sympathizers.

Rumors flew about how during the fall of the Silver Sacks' wing-like towers you could see an inhuman face amidst the wreckage. Not many besides Dante were there to see the cobbled together construct Mundus used in his final attempt to crush the Nephilim, so it was difficult to corroborate the claims of the devil's face, but the Order knew the truth. However, whatever demonic influence that still existed in the wake of Mundus' destruction were fighting back tooth and nail, using whatever was left of the hellish dimension they ruled with. After nine millennia of sovereignty over humanity, there were few demons who would want that to disappear.

Dante and Kat operated out of a safe house the former leader of the Order had set up, just in case something had happened to their headquarters. It was situated close to the center of the city, perfect as a command center that allowed Dante to reach those in need of deliverance from demons still prowling the limping city. It was an innocuous structure, but thanks to the word Kat helped get out around town, anyone who needed the services of a demon killer knew where to look. A police cruiser slowly lurched up to the safe house, the driver inside watching as a delivery boy drove away on a motorized scooter.

Kat dropped a large, flat cardboard box down on the desk, and then set her fists on her hips, glaring dissatisfiedly at Dante, who sucked the last scarce drops of liquor out of a clear bottle.

"What?" Dante said, looking up at her from his reclined seat behind the desk.

"You owe me money," Kat replied succinctly. "That's the last time you trick me into answering the door without telling me you ordered a pizza."

Dante smirked. "But I got us dinner!"

"No, _I_ got us dinner."

"How'm I gonna pay you back? I don't have any money. I guess I could offer some of my…other services?" Dante raised his brow.

"Save that for your angel floozies," Kat replied, sitting on the desk and opening the pizza box.

"Then I'll owe you one."

"Better start making some cash soon, I might start charging interest," Kat said, taking a tiny bite of a slice of pizza.

"I can't ask people for money. The last thing this city needs is someone charging them to keep 'em safe."

"Then maybe you should cut back on all the pizza you've been making me buy," Kat said, smirking.

"No way, I can't fight evil on an empty stomach!" Dante said, deliberately grabbing the largest piece he could find in the box. It was a habit he learned from years of never knowing when his next opportunity to eat was going to be.

"I'm not sure I'd trust the city's safety to a guy who functions on pizza and booze," a voice called from the entrance, the blinding light of the day outlining a slender figure with a brilliant corona.

Dante leaned back in his chair to get a good view past Kat, pointing Ivory in one hand at the figure while chomping down on the pizza in his other.

"You point guns at all your guests?" Officer Portinari asked.

"Only the ones asking me to spare moments to talk about lords and saviors," Dante said, pulling back his arm to relent the sighting of his pistol on his visitor.

"You'll find I'm not nearly as preachy," Portinari said, taking steps further into the safe house after closing the door behind her. "You're kind of tough to find, for all the rumors of you being a mercenary who'll do the jobs no one else will."

"I don't have money for a big, pink neon sign, either. You women, always wanting me to buy shit for you," Dante lamented sardonically.

"Some light reading?" Kat asked, noting the large file underneath the officer's arm, pinched at the side of her torso.

"You could say that," Portinari said, opening and leafing through the hefty file. "These are some things I've been able to find regarding the incident from six months ago."

"Oh man, I bet there's lots of great bullshit in there," Dante said sourly, continuing to eat his pizza.

"Some accident reports, missing person cases, and one very particular personal record…" Portinari said, glancing at Dante at the end of her sentence.

"Sweet…" Dante muttered as he stopped chewing, a mouth still full of faux-Italian cuisine.

"Dante hasn't done anything wrong," Kat reflexively defended.

"Lately," Dante quipped.

"Not helping, Dante," Kat snapped.

"Lapis Manalis Asylum for the Betterment of Psychiatric Health; Young Offenders Rehabilitation Program: Subject 644-32B…" Portinari read.

Dante's heartbeat jumped, pounding faster. He could hear a gruff voice, deep in his soul.

"Day 1 - Subject was brought in late last night in Limbo City Police custody. Having been charged with assault, but unwilling to cooperate with police, the subject was sent to our facility for psychological evaluation to see if he is fit to stand trial in a juvenile court. Subject has been silent, refusing to answer questions or participate in discussions with staff or patients," Portinari continued.

The voice inside him persisted, despite Dante's response of silence.

"Day 4 - Subject has become increasingly erratic over the past few days, instigating fist fights with orderlies. For his own safety, and that of the staff, subject has been confined to an isolated room, and is under constant surveillance by video." Portinari recited lines from the file as she began to pace in front of the desk.

Dante's heartbeat was like a machine gun, and the deafening voice unrelentingly demanded an answer to its question. He could feel a sinking sensation as an unbridled anger welled up inside, flowing like lava through his veins.

"Day 10 - Subject continues to become aggressive, particularly to selective staff members, as if he carries a personal grudge against them. Subject has begun refusing to eat."

_What. Is. Your. Name?_ The voice asked, booming in Dante's mind.

"What the fuck is your _point_?" Dante asked angrily as he leaned forward in his chair, interrupting Portinari and the voice scratching inside his skull like a dull, rusted knife.

Kat looked back, wanting to calm her friend, but relenting for a moment when she saw his eyes burning red like brimstone. Portinari didn't quite notice, with her pacing back and forth while reading the file.

"Day 13 - Subject finally responds to questions asked by staff, divulging his first name. Upon being taken back to his room after an evaluation, the subject Dante, who still refused to give his last name, broke free of his restraints, violently subduing orderlies before escaping the grounds."

"So Dante was in a psychiatric ward…weren't we all once…" Kat said, trailing off as she tried to steer the conversation some place a little less nerve-racking.

"When I met you two the other night, you mentioned something about 'hot spots'," Portinari said, closing the file.

"Areas still controlled by demonic influence, yeah." Kat nodded in response.

"What is this demonic influence? Violence, murders?" Portinari asked.

"Among other things; pets are probably disappearing, too," Kat explained.

"Pets…why?" Portinari's face curled in confusion.

Kat shrugged as she continued to eat her slice of pizza.

"_Mmmm_, cat guts!" Dante remarked, chomping down on another slice.

"There's also a tell-tale sign of foreboding when you're in one," Kat said.

"Really? How does that work?" Portinari asked, you could tell she was attempting to memorize what she was hearing, using small responses and listening intently, despite Dante's distracting asides.

"You just feel like shit. It hits people in different ways. Some turn into sad sacks, others just get…uh…super pissed off," Dante said, finally adding something useful to the conversation.

"Others become greedy, or…really, whatever the demons want people to feel. That's what Malice is. Demon's run on it. It's what pretty much makes them up. The stuff spreads in an area, and then it starts to affect the people there. The influence used to be much stronger, but with Limbo in pieces, the demons are just defaulting into the easier emotions they can get people to feel," Kat explained.

"But what's all this gotta do with my psych record?" Dante asked, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his chair again.

"Crime is getting worse around the Lapis Manalis building; assaults on the streets, domestic violence, thefts big and small. I mapped out the activity, and at the center of it all is that old asylum."

_What. Is. Your. Name?_ Dante reached for the pack of cigarettes at the corner of his desk.

"Once I saw what was in the center of this 'hot spot,' I did a little digging…and came up with Dante's psych record. Considering how integral he has been to bringing down these supposed demon forces, the link seemed a bit too strong to ignore," Portinari explained.

Dante lit a cigarette and inhaled heavily, the tip burning a bright orange that drew attention away from his smoldering eyes.

"So, you believe us now?" Kat asked.

"My partner is dead, killed by a bunch of demons. I also looked into those missing person reports you mentioned, and you were right; a lot of people that have been missing over the last couple of years showed up looking for their families. I'm still skeptical about all this, but…all I know is something is going on and you might be the only ones who can help," Portinari said.

Kat tried to hide a smile. It felt good to be acknowledged for the work they were doing. She was happy to have not heard herself referred to as a terrorist these past few months when the Order was just trying to help. Kat was more than happy to give the Order a better public image, for them to do what was truly right, despite what Vergil had…

"What do you know about this place, Dante?" Portinari asked.

"Food sucks. Room service was terrible. Bed was uncomfortable. I give it zero stars outta five," Dante replied.

"Dante…c'mon," Kat's shoulders sank in exasperation.

"Place is definitely run by demons," Dante said, taking a long slow drag from his cigarette before continuing. "It's why I fought back so much. All those orderlies they said I targeted? Demons. When I was younger, I tried to make sure I wasn't hurting regular people, so I only acted out against the ones I knew were demons. Luckily, they usually made it pretty fuckin' obvious that they were; if you were able to see that they were demons, they would treat you like shit.

"I didn't refuse to eat, either - they were starving me, probably some of the other patients, too. Those 'evaluations' weren't really all that comfy either, getting chained up and beaten while they asked their questions, all while they keep trying to reinforce how crazy you are," Dante explained.

"Yeah…the demons love doing that. Make everyone, including yourself, think you're crazy, and no one will ever believe you when you tell them demons are corrupting the world," Kat said, remembering her time before she was delivered from the Hellfire Prison.

"Hmph, well 'the devil's greatest trick was convincing the world that he didn't exist,' right" said Portinari.

"Was it just the orderlies? Seems like there would have to be someone pretty high up in the staff for them to be that cruel to the patients," Kat asked.

"Ho yeah," Dante chuckled. "A real asshole, some guy named Minos. Heard the demons talk about him a couple of times. Never saw him myself, always talked to me from behind some mirror, let his lackeys throw all the punches."

"How do you know this Minos is a demon, then, if you've never seen him?" Portinari asked, skeptical.

"I could feel it…whenever I got pulled down into Limbo I could feel this power pushing against me," Dante said, thinking back to a time when he was chained up in a dirty room, feeling immense hatred wash out from his reflection in a two-way mirror.

"That's Malice, alright." Kat nodded.

"I got that same feeling whenever I was in that dinky little room, whenever he talked, whenever he asked his stupid questions."

_What. Is. Your. Name?_ Dante inhaled heavily, as if he was trying to suck the ash straight through his cigarette and past the filter.

"Despite losing its funding from Silver Sacks, that place is still running. Do you think this Minos is still there?" Portinari asked, rapping two fingers on the file in her hand.

"Probably, I didn't kill him when I left," Dante answered. "Would have loved to, though…"

"From the sound of things, he's trying to grow his influence with Mundus gone," Kat said, sliding off the desk. "A lot of these 'feudal lords' are popping up these days."

"What…you think the demons are engaged in some sort of civil war?" Portinari asked, pushing some of her blond hair behind her ear.

"Demons are power-hungry by nature, without a leader to control them it's very possible they're trying to carve out their own territories," Kat said.

"Doesn't really matter to me; demons are hanging around my city, and I don't like it. I think it's time I paid ol' Minos a visit," Dante said, standing up from his desk and grabbing his coat from the back of the chair.

"I can take you there," Portinari said. "You should be able to get in easily to do what you need to with my help."

"Oh, a police escort, huh?" Kat said with a smile.

"No way am I sitting in a crown vic." Dante shook his head. "Not even shotgun. I'll make it there myself."

"You remember where it is?" Kat checked.

"Could never forget…" Dante replied sullenly, flicking his burned down cigarette into the trash bin. He could still hear whispers of Minos in the back of his mind.

Everyone stood around the doorway for a moment, gathering their effects. Kat placed her cantripped sprays into her belt, and Dante grabbed a short-bored shotgun sitting on the counter near the door, placing it under his coat. Portinari shot a glance at Dante after noticing the firearm. Dante sighed. "No permit for this one either, officer; you can fine me later," he said.

"Well, I suppose we're going to be working together for a little while, huh?" Kat held out her hand to the officer. "Welcome to the Order, Officer Portinari."

Portinari shook Kat's hand, and then turned to Dante. "Uh, thanks. You can call me Beatrice," she said, holding out her hand for the young devil hunter with an uneasy smile.

Dante stared at her hand, and then lightly slapped her palm with his as he walked past. "Welcome aboard, Trish. Club meets on Thursday nights, bring your own beer."

The officer nodded to herself, thinking she shouldn't have expected too much. "Trish" pulled out her keys and followed Dante out the door of the safe house, with Kat in tow.

"Let's meet a block away from the asylum, I have a plan to get us inside," Trish said.

"Whatever," Dante acknowledged, immediately mantling over the hood of the police cruiser parked out front and jumping high into the air.

_I will ask you again._ Minos' voice growled in Dante's head as he dashed through the streets. He soared through the air, gliding quickly between two buildings from an alleyway. The force of his passing blasted out windows as he rushed by. On the street below, a group of stygians gathered, and it was for this express reason that Dante chose this route through the city. He needed to let off some steam. He could feel something boiling up inside him, and he didn't want to percolate around Kat, or this new person, whom he called Trish.

Dante screamed, his hands wrapped in twisting metal as he shot down to the pavement, smashing through the concrete with a demonic fist, the destruction enveloping a portion of the Stygians and blowing them away. Dante jumped up from the rubble, reaching out for a stygian with the chain-like claw, pulling it into the air and then whipping it into the ground with so much force that it instantly crumpled into a pile of limbs and black ichor.

_What. Is. Your. Name?_ Dante cursed the voice, lashing out at the world around him. He dropped to the ground with a crimson battleaxe gripped tightly in his hands. The blade cleaved the ground, sending a tremor of blood red energy splitting through the concrete as it crawled forward, popping a stygian into the air as it moved underneath the demon. Dante released one hand from the axe and pulled out the black pistol, Ebony, from its shoulder holster, unleashing a flurry a bullets into the airborne foe. He heard a screech behind him, and immediately spun around with the axe, smashing a stygian away and into the fender of a van in the corner of the lot.

_You can end this. Just give me your name,_ Minos demanded in memories. Dante remembered the beatings, the fists crashing into his face, the feet smashing into his ribs, the blows to his stomach leaving him breathless and cringing. He tried to keep a straight face despite the pain, with teeth clenched, seething in anger, but bound by chains, forced to endure whatever punishment they doled out to him.

Another stygian approached from his side, and Dante holstered his pistol and swung his silver sword across its chest, hacking away as the other demons began to rush in. Dante spiraled with sword in hand, severing the stygian's torso from its waist, and then he turned to a car parked in the lot. He thrust his sword forward, the blade morphing into a segmented chain tipped with a claw, which clenched around the car's frame.

_Give me your name and this will all stop,_ Dante heard in his head. An adolescent and bruised Dante pulled on the chains shackled to his wrists. He tested their tensile strength, tugging against where they were bolted into the gritty, yellowed tiles of the wall. Days of starvation left him too weak to pull against the bindings. He knew his flesh and bone body couldn't hope to match the strength of the metal chains, not now. However, he acknowledged that flesh was weaker, and it was flesh he would have to fight against if he was to ever escape this torment.

Dante gritted his teeth, livid at the young boy in his memories. He yanked on the chain in his hands with insurmountable strength, pulling the car squealing on its tires towards him. He flicked his wrists and twisted his body, throwing the car over his head, rolling across the parking lot and crashing into the stygians as they mindlessly advanced on their target. Inky black Malice sprayed over the parking lot as the stygians exploded upon impact with the car. The car crashed lopsidedly into a far wall, and Dante felt no other presence but his.

No other Malice, but his.

Dante stabbed his weapon into the pavement as the blade turned back into a solid, sharp piece of blinding silver.

_What. Is. Your. Name?_

Dante pulled his pack of cigarettes from his pocket as another voice rang out in his head, one that felt more familiar to him. _Rebel_, it told him. It gave him the strength to escape, to rebel. Dante lit the cigarette between his lips and inhaled deeply, the sweltering smoke burning away the rage in his heart. The tip of the cigarette burned a bright orange as the red smolder of Dante's eyes subsided.

_My name is Dante,_ the boy of his memories said, Dante exhaling a thick puff of smoke. The young boy's words, however, were not those of compliance, but of defiance.

Dante pulled his silvery blade from the pavement, resting it across his shoulder as he strutted calmly out of the destroyed parking lot, blithely stepping through puddles of black goop without a care in the world.

_I gave you my name, Minos_, Dante thought. _Now I've got something else for you._


	3. Mission 3 Illusion of Sanity

Mission 3

[Illusion of Sanity]

"Nephilim, huh?" Trish asked, keeping her eyes on the road.

"Yup," Kat nodded. "Children of both an angel and a demon."

"How many of these Nephilim are there, a lot?" Trish slowed down for a stoplight.

Kat glanced out her window, watching people pass by on the sidewalk. "I don't really know. Dante's the only one I can be sure of."

She pushed away memories of another, of new, more recent memories she avoided thinking about. Memories she wished she didn't have, of someone she wished she hadn't known. Her wounds were still open, even after six months.

"Heh, I guess it's not too common for demons and angels to consummate a relationship, let alone be friends," Trish said, pushing the cruiser into motion again. "And what about you, are you a demon who switched sides or something?"

"Nope, I'm just…an ordinary girl, but I'm a psychic. I can see into the demon world, and I can use specially prepared spells to affect it," Kat replied.

"Demons, demons falling in love with _angels_, human psychics that can influence a demon world; I suppose I should stop being surprised by now," Trish said.

"Yeah…the world is a crazy place, not the people in it, as much as people try to tell us otherwise," Kat replied.

"It's pretty weird that people outside of the city are still reluctant to believe what they saw," Trish commented, taking a right turn down the street.

"People _inside_ the city still don't believe it. They saw a giant made out of buildings with a face, but it all got spun into the Silver Sacks towers just falling down. Overthrowing the demons in power was the easy part, getting people to believe that they exist…apparently much more difficult," Kat said.

"Sometimes, when you've been asleep, waking up to a crueler world is hard…" Trish responded.

Dante flew down onto the road from overhead, directly in front of the cruiser. Shards of pavement popped into the air from the impact of his landing, bouncing onto the hood of the police cruiser as Trish slammed on the breaks. The car skidded to a stop mere inches from Dante's face. Trish let out an exasperated growl and she clenched her steering wheel.

"God damn it, Dante!" Trish yelled.

Dante stood up, leaning on the hood of the car. "I win," he smirked. "Meet you at the front."

He rapped his hands on the hood before sauntering off the street, leaving Trish to maneuver the cruiser into the parking lot at the front of the asylum.

"Is he always like that?" Trish asked as she slid the car into an open space.

"Dante? Well…it depends. I think he jokes around with people he feels comfortable with, uses it to ease tension. Dante spent a lot of his life not feeling he could trust people, so I think he tries to keep things light," Kat replied.

"What about his anger?" Trish asked bluntly.

"He…he's working on it." Kat lied; Dante himself wasn't even sure how to begin to 'work on it,' all he could think to do was to suffocate the anger with cigarettes and drown it with liquor. "There's a lot resting on his shoulders, I do what I can to lighten that burden, but…sometimes there are just things I can't help with."

"I see," Trish responded.

Kat found Dante standing in the middle of the courtyard. "What are you up to, Dante?" she asked.

"Shopping," Dante replied, staring intently at what looked like simply thin air.

To Dante, however, there was a sullied marble sculpture of a robed woman cradling a large hourglass in her arms. Black ichor dripped from her eyes, and a shadowy crystalline substance encased its base, as if it was consuming the effigy. A Divinity Statue: Dante had never really known where they came from, but they seemed to be something only he could see, and he had seen them all throughout his life. However, their origin was no concern of Dante's, and all that mattered to him was that they vended helpful objects, like some sort of mystical apothecary.

"Oh, one of those things," Kat muttered. Kat and Dante had discussed the statues before, and despite all of her supernatural power, she could not perceive them. She did, however, feel a calming presence whenever she was near one. Even now, she could feel herself becoming more relaxed and some of the tension in her washing away.

Dante held out his hand, holding a red skull in his palm. The skull dissipated a moment later with a red shine, and in its place a minute flash of light erupted. As the light subsided, a small glass-like green star rested in his hand.

The green light flowing inside the statue's hourglass flared out, as it usually did whenever Dante first stepped into its vicinity. Dante glanced at the flashing light and then quickly turned behind him, where Trish stood.

"So…uhm…what are we doing?" the officer asked.

"Nothing important, just getting ready," Dante answered her, hiding some skepticism in his voice.

"Okay then, let's get this done," she said.

"What exactly are we doing? You just want me to bust in there?" Dante asked, pocketing the glass star under his coat.

"We need to get inside so I can make you a portal into Minos' Limbo pocket. We'll be dropping you as close to the middle of the place as we can," Kat replied.

"Sounds good. Could probably hide out in an empty room or something," Dante said.

"You said Minos brought you to the same room whenever they interrogated you, right? Chances are that'll be where Minos is hanging out, so you'll want to make your way there," Trish added.

"Well, that all sounds like a big stinky pile of fun, but…how are we getting me in there?" Dante asked, holding his hands up.

"We're going to admit you," Trish said.

"I'm not gonna drop trou and wave my dick around yelling 'pudding' just to prove I'm cracked," Dante scowled.

"No need; being a cop opens a lot of doors." Trish turned toward the main entrance.

"I mean…I could if you wanted me to," Dante teased.

"Anything for the good of the people, right Dante?" Trish asked amidst stifling a chuckle she didn't want to make.

"Definitely," Dante said following behind the officer.

Kat pulled at Dante's sleeve, and he slowed his step to match hers. "Are you sure you'll be okay? Coming back here, I mean?" she asked in a low voice.

"I'll be fine," Dante said, pulling up the hood of his coat to cover his head to hide his obvious ivory hair. "I never wanted to come back here, but since I am, might as well tear the place down piss on the rubble."

Trish stopped just short of the door, waiting for Kat and Dante to catch up.

"You ready?" Trish asked, looking at Dante's eye as it peeked from behind the hem of his hood.

"As I'll ever be," Dante said, sighing.

Trish reached out, grabbing the devil hunter's bicep with an authoritative grip. From years of unfavorable interactions with law enforcement, Dante reflexively pulled his arm away, but Trish held on tight, tighter than he thought she could.

"Relax…it's all part of the plan, alright?" Trish said. "Trust me…"

Dante took a deep breath and relinquished to the officer, he could feel his face contorting into a scowl already just on principle of being escorted by police.

"Let's rock, baby," he said, flashing a grin to break through the sour demeanor that was flaring up.

Trish smirked slightly, pushing the door open. The trio motioned inside the admissions area. Immediately, Kat and Dante could feel a push on their emotions, a sense of foreboding that emanated from the tiled halls, like a rushing river of oppression.

"Can I help you?" an old woman asked from behind the counter.

"Admitting a patient," Trish said, pulling Dante up to the counter with her.

The aging woman peered over her bifocals to scan the hooded young man. Dante himself, playing the part, just slowly nodded his head while staring intently at nothing in particular.

"Shut up, clown…" he muttered.

"Is he dangerous?" the receptionist asked, her voice rattling with age. "Should I call some orderlies?"

"No need; he's not dangerous, just a handful," Trish replied.

"And who's this?" the woman regarded Kat.

"I'm his sister, I was just worried about him, so I called the police for help," Kat explained.

"SHUT UP CLOWN! I'll PIERCE THAT BIG NOSE!" Dante cried.

Kat pulled Dante close, cradling his head with feigned concern, hushing him in a comforting tone. "Shh…it's okay," she whispered.

"Stupid clown…won't stop laughing…" Dante mumbled.

"If we could just talk with a doctor in an examination room, it would be great. That way they can see what to do with him," Trish pled.

"Fine…follow Gordon here to room 15," the woman said, handing Trish a clipboard with a few pages clamped to it. "A doctor will be with you shortly."

Trish thanked the receptionist, and then guided Dante and Kat to follow the orderly Gordon, a veritable house of a man with a shaved head and a waddle that could make the earth tremor, if he could ever summon the effort.

"Holy shit…that guy's neck has more rolls than a bakery," Dante whispered.

Kat elbowed him in the side lightly, and Trish glanced back with a smirk before putting her finger up to her lips to request quiet. Blue bathroom doors soon came up on their right, and Dante took the initiative to get the mission started.

"I need to make boom-boom!" Dante called, staring at the ceiling tiles.

The orderly stopped and turned, giving the 'mentally-challenged' Dante a tired look, pointing to the men's bathroom at his right. Kat guided Dante into the bathroom, where she and Trish then stood in front of the door.

Gordon sighed heavily. "Room 15 is just down the hall and to the left; you can find it when you're done. I'm going on break…" he said, immediately taking his leave with a hurried shuffle.

A moment later, Dante poked his head out from the door. "One of you girls wanna help me get my pants off?" he asked.

Trish turned, pushing him back into the bathroom with a hand against his face. Kat followed closely behind, quickly glancing up and down the hallway to make sure they weren't seen by anyone in particular.

"Hey, no girls allowed!" Dante expounded as the women filed into the room.

Trish walked to the stalls in the bathroom, pushing each door open to check for occupants. Kat pulled a stencil sheet from the tube slung over her back, and unrolled it on the floor.

"This sure seems like the place," Kat said, shaking the spray can she took from her belt. "Did you feel that push when we walked in?"

"Yeah…looks like this guy is going strong, even without Mundus' help," Dante said, lighting a cigarette he clenched between his lips. Trish stepped past Dante, grabbing the cigarette from his mouth with two fingers and tossing it into the sink.

"No smoking, Dante," Trish chided.

"Man, you pick the lamest times to be a stickler for the rules," Dante pouted, replacing his lighter back in his pocket.

"Minos has probably been sucking up the souls of the patients here. That's why his presence is so powerful inside the asylum," Kat said, spraying over the stencil.

"I thought you had to be some sort of demon king to suck up souls…that's what Phin said, right?" Dante asked, checking his firearms.

"Exactly…which means Minos has some sort of help. If you can, see if you can get some information out of him about that," Kat said.

"So, try not to shoot first and ask questions later, okay?" Trish said, crossing her arms, leaning against the bathroom door.

"Can I shoot and ask questions at the same time? I think that's a good compromise," Dante said, holstering his pistols underneath his coat.

Kat stood up, pulling the stencil sheet from the ground as she did. "Okay, you're all set Dante," she said, placing the spray can back in her belt.

"You should probably be ready to get people outta here when I kill Minos; pull the fire alarm or something. No telling what'll happen to this place once that fuck's Limbo pocket collapses," Dante said, stepping onto the glyph painted on the grimy bathroom floor.

"You sure you're going to be okay in there?" Trish asked.

"This isn't my first party," Dante replied, looking back at Trish with his trademark smirk.

A distortion slowly bubbled up from the glyph under the young man's feet, enveloping him in a pale light like some unseen fire. The color of Dante's figure slowly began to wash out, fading into a series of grays and whites as his permanence waned.

"Don't get lost in there," Kat said.

"I'll just follow the bad vibes," Dante said as his countenance washed away with the stream of energy.

Dante pushed the hood off of his head as his transference from the human realm concluded.

"Dante?" Kat's voice echoed through the veil and to his ears. "Everything okay?"

A slender, ghostly figure stood in front of him - Kat's astral projection. As a psychic, Kat was able to peer into the dimensional limbo at will, seeing its inhabitants as pale phantoms, which could in kind see her in a similar fashion. Her aerosol cantrips helped her bridge the two realms, the human and demonic, in various ways to produce a multitude of desired effects. Otherwise, she was still only an observer.

"Yeah, I'm okay," Dante said, glancing around.

For the most part, the bathroom was every bit the same as it was before he jumped dimensions, but he knew that wouldn't last. In the mirrors, Dante could see reflections back into the human world, where Trish and Kat waited patiently. To his left, against the door, Dante saw a pale silhouette, too cloudy and faint to make out any features, unlike Kat's projection. Trish was just a murky body with a feeble presence across the ether.

"You should drop out though…I can take it from here," Dante said.

The young man understood how Kat's projections took a lot out of her, especially when she was conscious. There was no need for her to follow him here, Dante believed.

"Okay, I we'll wait for some sort of sign from you," Kat said.

"I'll make sure it's a loud one," Dante said.

Kat's projection dissipated, her features vanishing as she became nothing more than a shadowy silhouette.

_Shouldn't be too long before something notices me,_ Dante thought. He stepped near the door out of the bathroom when he heard a deep, disembodied voice.

**INTRUDER**, it growled. The voice was accompanied by thick, bold letters spelling out "intruder" on the wall behind the sinks and mirrors. Limbo was keen to the demon hunter's presence.

"Right on cue," Dante said, bracing himself for the inevitable. The message on the wall melted away seconds later, and Dante knew what came next.

A tremor swept through the building. Dante ran a gloved hand through his white hair, watching the bathroom's tiled walls undulate. The stall doors, left open from Trish's inspection, shook on their hinges while the toilets imploded, collapsing in on themselves as inky ooze poured out from their tanks. The faucets in the row of sinks on the opposite wall spewed more of the same ichor, and they soon filled to the brim with a bubbling blackness.

Dante walked towards the exit to the bathroom, and as he raised his hand to grab the door's handle, the door simply snapped off its hinges and flew into the room. Dante quickly slid to the side to avoid the door as it sailed past, pressing flatly against the opposite wall. It slowly spun clockwise as it came to rest. Dante shrugged and stepped into the hallway. To his left was the entrance, where the admissions counter swung inward as the disembodied voice muttered "**TRAP**." It barred exit from the hallway as the counter's sides fit snugly up against the walls, with the filing cabinets behind the counter closing off the world behind them. It was the subliminal illusion of exodus; the admissions desk was existed to admit people to the hospice in the human realm, but in Limbo, it was an obstruction made up of something so common, one that really never allowed anyone to leave.

A grating crackle pierced the silence, coming from what sounded like a public address system inside the building.

"It seems we have a visitor…" A deep, gravelly voice announced. "Or…maybe it's a new patient."

Feedback screeched behind the man's words. Despite the distortion of the PA system, Dante knew the voice all too well: Minos. Almost instinctively, his sword Rebellion emerged with a flash from behind Dante, hanging off his back as it yearned for anarchy.

"I don't know who you are, but you've got some massive balls coming in here uninvited. I don't like surprise guests," Minos growled.

Dante turned to his right, looking down the depths of the hallway that reached further into the asylum. Another tremor passed through the complex, and the walls and floor bent as an immense wave rolled through the hallway like a tide of beige tiles. As the wave passed by, the ceiling shot up into the air, disappearing into the nether, leaving large shafts of light shining down from the bulbs hovering listlessly high above from nothing. The wave blasted the doors of each room away, leaving them spinning flatly against the far walls just like the bathroom door had.

Dante drew his sword and tapped its tip on floor. He closed his eyes, taking in the oppressive force pushing against his emotions. If he could keep himself in tune with that oppression, Dante would be able to navigate his way directly to Minos. The only thing he feared in doing so was that it opened his heart to that force, that aggression. Dante felt a lot of anxiety, which only amplified his fears. The only consolation was that in Limbo, he could truly cut loose. Demons were all that he would find here - this was their space, or…what was left of it.

Limbo had been a dimension halfway between Hell and Earth, which the demons used for centuries to influence humanity. Limbo affected the baser emotions of humans, subliminally urging them into vices that strengthened the demonic hold on the world. With the defeat of the demon king Mundus, Limbo collapsed on itself, leaving demons in plain sight, but any powerful demon, or a collection of their lesser ilk, could still draw upon Limbo, creating a localized pocket with the same affects the dimension once had before its collapse.

Malice permeated the world of Limbo, constructing and reconstructing the environment as its wielders saw fit. Malice also gave the world of Limbo itself a form of sentience, the source of the disembodied voice and the indiscreet writing on the walls. The whole of Limbo was a security system, and it had no qualms with sending out demons to slaughter invaders like Dante.

However, Dante relished in that fact.

He welcomed it, and his blade ached for the frenzy.

As the devil hunter made his way through the hall, he peered into the rooms as he passed by. The entryways were left wide open, the doors themselves stuck to the far wall. The delusion of privacy; in the real world, Dante's small room here had given him the impression that it was his only bastion from the torture, but the door was really always open, and any could invade that small bastion, shattering the illusion of safety his young mind could muster.

"Seems like we've got ourselves a cowboy, riding in to free the town…" Minos said from over the loudspeakers. "But there's one thing I don't think anyone told you, cowboy - this is _my_ world."

Dante felt a slight rumble under his feet, and the hallway suddenly stretched out before him. The grinding of tile and concrete filled the air as the hallway's end disappeared into the distance. Dante, however, was undeterred and unimpressed, and he simply continued walking, dragging the tip of his sword along the tiled floor. It wasn't long before he noticed the blinking red light of a security camera hanging on the wall. He stopped a few feet from it, sending an icy glare into the lens that stared back.

"Wait, wait, wait…you. I remember you," Minos' voice trailed off.

A good moment passed in silence, and Dante's glance darted about, just waiting for a response. Maybe Minos' memory was fading, or maybe Dante was slipping. He did so love to make an impression on people.

"…Daaaanteeeee…welcome back." Minos' made no attempt to hide the contempt in his voice. "I've kept our special playroom tidy; I've been awaiting your return."

"Sorry, can't stay for long," Dante said.

Just hearing the deep timbre of Minos' booming voice made Dante's blood boil up. The rhythm of his heart was quickening, and he felt the familiar pulse at his lower back as adrenaline seared through his veins like comet through the night sky.

"Then to what do I owe this pleasure…?"

"You've got a bill to pay, and I came to collect," Dante pointed his blade at the camera. "Mundus isn't around to pay the kids' credit cards anymore. Why don't you come on out, instead of hiding behind your fuckin' cameras?"

"Heheheh! So the Son of Sparda has come for my head, has he? A little upset over the accommodations during your last visit, are we?" Minos taunted.

"There has to be accommodations before I can get upset about 'em, dickmunch." Dante swung his sword to rest over his shoulder.

"My apologies then, Dante…let me send out my staff to indulge your every whim," Minos said, just as cries of stygians echoed through the hallway.

Dante flashed his trademark smirk, watching as the doll-like stygians climbed from puddles of inky Malice that appeared on the walls and floor.

"That's all I ask. But…" Dante said, pulling Ebony from its holster with his right hand and quickly loosing a round straight through the camera's lens. "…this show ain't for free."

The sound of metal scraping along the floor filled the hall, and stygians shrieked as they closed in on their prey.

"More stygians? This'll be a walk in the park," Dante muttered.

Dante rushed forward toward the foremost demon in his path, swinging his sword upward, launching the stygian high into the air as the uppercut itself cleaved through the tiled floor. Another two stygians closed in from the sides, and the silver sword in Dante's hand took on a blue hue and stretched into a large scythe. He hooked one stygian by the neck between the crotch of the scythe's blade and snaith, sweeping the demon to the left, catching the other demon in the process. Dante continued pulling the scythe to his left, and soon put enough effort into his swing to spin the scythe above his head. As he picked up speed, the scythe tore through the demons, and the one he had launched into the air previously came down directly onto the spinning scythe, spraying its inky lifeblood across the walls as it fell apart amidst the scythe's whirling carnage.

Another crowd emerged further down the hall and Dante took off towards them. He slid forward with the scythe raised behind him, turning the halt in his advance into a spiraling attack, whipping the scythe in front of him and cleaving through the several torsos. Another stygian screeched behind Dante, raising its armblade to strike, but Dante deftly grabbed his shotgun from under his coat and rested it over his shoulder, firing a payload of buckshot into the stygian's body. The spray of bullets tore through the stygian's body, black gore exploding from its back and onto the hallway tiles. The stygian crumpled to the floor with a sizable hole in its chest.

"C'mon Minos! This can't be all you've got!" Dante taunted, resting the scythe over his shoulder, tapping the shotgun against the side of his leg.

Another group of demons appeared up ahead, climbing from their splatters of Malice and shrieking wildly. Dante grinned as they scampered around, forming a loose configuration to approach with. Demons like these, generated from Limbo like blood cells to attack a foreign pathogen, were fairly mindless, simply rudimentary constructs that followed vague orders given them from Limbo or whomever controlled it. Dante had learned through his years scrapping with them that they felt neither fear nor pain, but that didn't stop his enjoyment of cutting them limb from limb.

To Dante, Limbo became less a Hell on Earth, and more a playground, and the demons were his toys. "Keep 'em coming," Dante said strutting toward the legion confidently, spinning the shotgun on his finger.


	4. Mission 4 Anger Cage

Mission 4

[Anger Cage]

The examination room was a relatively small space, with dirtied and yellowing tiles on the floor and walls. Rust stains formed streaks at the bases of metal pipes running along the room's ceiling. A large mirror took up one entire wall, with a small surveillance camera in the corner trying to seem inconspicuous, despite its blinking red light. Opposite the mirror was a lone door in the center of the wall, the only way in or out of the room. The door rumbled with the sound of a sequence of softened knocks.

Dante stood on the other side of the door, holding what was left of a stygian's body by the head, using its face to both knock on and push the door open. Dante tossed the stygian's corpse aside in the hallway before he entered the room, examining the space while trying to withstand the source of the heavy waves of oppression, which emanated from just beyond the mirror. It made Dante want to curl up on the floor, and just surrender to whatever comes for him. Despite being older, the emotive suppression wasn't all that much weaker than when he experienced it as a child.

In the mirror, Dante's reflection was not his own, or at least…not of his age. A boy, no more than ten or eleven, stood beyond the glass, his jet-black hair unkempt, and his body, gaunt with hunger, covered in bruises. His visage was familiar, of a young Dante, his right eye swollen and covered with purpled skin. Despite his emaciated and battered look, his posture was straight, and he smiled at the white haired devil hunter at the entrance to the room.

"Welcome Dante…I hope you appreciate that I've kept our playroom nice and neat, just the way you left it," the reflection said in an unbefitting, deep voice. "Were my underlings as accommodating as you had hoped?"

"Really dude, you thought some lackeys would stop me? I shoved my sword so far up your boss' ass he was licking the tip before he died and you toss a bunch of smallfry at me?" Dante snapped.

The young Dante chuckled with a voice like an earthquake, and the door to the room slammed shut behind the devil hunter.

"Mundus? Mundus was a pissant we all _suffered_. He had some good ideas, but he had no business sitting on that throne. He was a demon king through no virtue of his own but a loophole. Sparda, though…now he was a demon king. Too bad he threw his chips in with Mundus."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Dante prodded, feeling awkward talking to a vision of his younger self. Seeing that battered young boy made Dante slightly angry. Minos sure knew how to rub at a raw nerve.

"You think you're some hot shit because you killed Mundus? Mundus was a pushover! He was a megalomaniacal piece of shit that got his throne because he found the Hell Gate and duped Sparda into joining him. You only killed a conman, Nephilim…a conman with more power than he knew what to do with. Maybe I should be thanking you," the boy said with an appreciative smile.

"Save it," Dante growled.

"Aww, now is that any way to treat an old friend? Don't you remember all the good times we've shared?" Minos said.

"Oh I remember…I remember every fist in my face," Dante said, feeling a ball of fury swelling up within his chest.

"I remember every kick in my ribs."

It came from deep, flaring outward with every beat of his heart.

"I remember the taste of blood in my mouth."

The fury consumed him like a fire, and Dante's eyes shone blazing red.

"But…most of all, I remember slicing through your demon lackeys. I remember breaking my chains and carving my way out of this shithole." The shift in Dante's tone helped quell the fury, saving his soul from total immolation. "I remember wishing I could cut your head off, and I think it's high time I made that happen."

"You still think you're a match for me?" Minos growled.

In the background of the mirror's reflection, the world twisted. The walls behind the young Dante blew out, sending tiles far into the distance as a fiery, hellish landscape of whirling black smoke whipped around, encasing the area in flame-tinted clouds. Flakes of Malice floated through the air on violent winds, smearing up against the mirror. On Dante's side, the room was deathly still, wholly unaffected by the localized ruin the mirror reflected.

The reflection of young Dante grinned maniacally. "Welcome to the big leagues, Son of Sparda."

Dante pulled Ebony from its holster under his coat, pointing it at the young reflection. "Let's start the party," Dante said.

A bullet screamed out of the barrel ahead of a blast of fire, crashing into the mirror directly between the young Dante's eyes. The round spun in place, drilling itself into the glass as countless cracks appeared with subtle snaps, covering the whole of the mirror. However, the cracks didn't stop when they reached the edges of the mirror, they continued past the frame, stretching out onto the walls and ceiling. With a sharp snap, the glass and walls shattered, blowing away into shards and leaving Dante to stand on a platform made up of what was left of the examination room's floor. All around him lay the devastation first seen in the reflection; hellish clouds swirled violently, and debris swarmed about, forming into pillars floating at the corners of the lone platform.

Dante glanced around, trying to sense where exactly Minos was hiding, although he didn't have to search long when a hulking mass of tan flesh rose up from one side of the platform. He seemed a man, wrapped in an inky black toga that appeared to drip off his frame. Large clawed hands wrapped by chains clenched the edges of the platform, and Minos leaned his upper half forward at Dante. His face was more skull-like, with sunken, burning orange eyes nestled in the deep blackness of his sockets. Horn-like protrusions extended from his brow, circling his head to form a ghastly crown.

"That's what you really look like? Glad you stayed behind that glass all this time," Dante quipped. "Mighta given me nightmares."

"Ever the joker," Minos said with a fanged jaw. "Just like your father."

"Glad to hear I got something good from HIERRUGH!" Dante's quip was cut short by something wrapping tightly around his upper body.

Dante was lifted off the platform, and struggled fruitlessly while he was turned on his side in the air. As he was rolled back, he saw what had him: a large tail, sneaking up from the edge of the platform opposite of Minos.

"Yes, too bad you don't have his intelligence," Minos said.

Minos slammed Dante into the platform, dazing him.

"Hahaha! I can just hear your tiny Nephilim brain rattling around!" Minos laughed. "But this can't be everything; I thought you were 'Dante! The demon king slayer!'"

Minos whipped his tail back, sending Dante flying away. The devil hunter zipped past a floating pillar, and he gritted his teeth as he righted himself in the air, just in time to plant his hands and feet onto a floating piece of debris situated at the periphery of the area. Dante turned, forcing himself off the slab of wall, soaring back towards Minos and the platform, letting his angelic side afford him the lightness of weight necessary to glide through the air. Dante drew his sword as he sailed closer to Minos. He let out a battle cry, raising his sword to strike, but was slapped into the tiled floor just a few feet shy of the demon.

Minos let out a guttural laugh as he climbed up further onto the platform, the hem of his ink-like black robe brushing against the ground, creating a thin streak of Malice like paint on a canvas.

"Fucking…_tail_…" Dante grumbled, pushing himself up off the floor.

"You see, Son of Sparda…you're nothing compared to me," Minos growled. "You might as well be that angry little boy all over again, trying to put on a brave face while his teeth got _kicked in_."

Dante took to a knee, loosely holding Rebellion in his right hand with a weakened grip. For all of Minos' bluster, he was right; his attacks had as much force behind them as Mundus' did, but this time he wasn't getting punched by a building. Just a few wrings and slaps of his tail saw Dante's vitality sapped. The young man looked up at his opponent, blood dripping from his right nostril.

"Yes! That's the face!" Minos laughed. "I've missed it all these years. No one has ever put up as much of a fight as you did."

Minos jumped from the platform, landing on a smaller chunk of wall floating within the chaotic torrent.

"Well…" Dante started, reaching under his coat. "…I guess I'm just that special."

"I must admit," Minos said, clenching his hands into fists, "beating you myself is much more satisfying than when I had the orderlies do it…I've really been missing out."

Dante pulled the emerald star he received via the statue from under his coat, and held it firmly in his hand.

"Yeah, well get ready for Round Two," Dante muttered, tightly closing his hand to crush the glass star. The star shattered into innumerable pieces, releasing a small wave of green that washed over Dante. Dante stood up with renewed vigor, and swung his sword in a wide arc, watching Minos listlessly floating around the platform.

"Still willing to fight? Then let's change things up a little bit!" Minos said, sweeping his hand forward.

Shards of glass flew in from the clouds, forming into enormous mirrors at the four edges of the platform while the hellish clouds closed in, obscuring anything beyond the glass fixtures. Dante found himself surrounded on all sides, and he lost track of Minos.

"Does this remind you of anything, Dante?" Minos' voice carried from everywhere, impossible to pinpoint its origin.

Dante scanned what he could; only seeing reflections upon reflections of himself.

"Real cute, Minos. Shouldn't be surprised though, hiding is where you feel safest," Dante taunted.

Minos' tail lashed at his back, and Dante stumbled forward, cursing in frustration. He turned sharply, looking back at the mirror behind him; a reflection of young Dante laughed maniacally before a flash of white swept across the glass, and Dante was staring back at himself again. His frustration grew, just another spark in the already raging fire swelling inside. If he wanted to get through this, though, Dante knew he'd have to keep calm.

Dante took a deep breath, trying to focus on the oppressive wave of Malice pushing his emotions down, crushing any positive feelings and leaving nothing but despondency and anger.

_What. Is. Your. Name?_ the voice echoed in his head again.

It was risky, letting that Malice push on him; it could intensify his broiling anger, he could lose control, succumbing to the man-demon's bloodlust. Unfortunately, it was the only way now. Dante reached back into memories he usually liked to forget, of himself chained up in what used to be this very room.

_What. Is. Your. Name?_ Dante try to keep the anger in him from boiling over, choking it back down like seething bile.

Dante thought about how he could feel Minos' presence behind the mirror, how he knew for certain the man was there, even though he hadn't ever seen him.

"C'mon out, Minos! Grow a pair, so I can tear 'em off and shove 'em down your throat!" Dante yelled.

"Ha! Son of Sparda, you disappoint me - you talked such a big game, I thought you'd be better than this!" Minos gibed.

And there it was! Dante felt the source of the wave of despair to his left; a sort of pressure driving against his perception. He spun on his heel and thrust Rebellion ahead of him, sliding forward into a mirror reflecting a younger Dante in an examination room not twisted by Limbo. The boy reeled back in surprise. Dante's silver blade crashed into the mirror, blowing shards of glass forward with the force of the thrust. The other three mirrors exploded in kind as the storm clouds too receded, and Minos recoiled as shards peppered his body, his cover blown.

"Damn you!" The demon roared.

Minos swiped his right fist towards Dante, who parried the blow, brushing the chain-covered hand aside with his sword. Minos threw a left hook, and Dante rolled under the swing. As he rose to his feet, Rebellion's metal wrapped around his hands, and Dante hurled a straight punch forward, colliding with Minos' own left fist. A loud crunch echoed out from within Minos' clawed hand, and the chains wrapped about it fragmented and scattered from the power of the blow. The demon wailed as he pulled his hand away, and Dante slid backwards as his metal gauntlets reverted into the shape of a sword, which he dragged across the floor to stop his backwards motion.

"Just needed a chance to warm up!" Dante called, raising his sword in one hand, and beckoning the demon forth with his other.

A snarling Minos threw a volley of punches and chops with his one good hand, and sparks flew off the chains as Dante effortlessly parried each attack, using Rebellion to guide his blows off course.

"Ooooh man, you're slippin' Minos. Mundus packed a better punch than this!" Dante laughed, swiping his sword to nonchalantly parry the demon's attacks.

Minos leapt forward, slamming the platform where Dante had been standing a split second before. His tail flew in from the side, and Dante jumped up, flipping over the tail as it swept across the floor, peeling tiles from the grout and throwing them precariously into the air. Dante caught a glimpse of Minos' clenched fist coming from overhead, and he raised his sword to meet it. The chain-wrapped fist clanged against Rebellion's broadside, but the blow still shoved the airborne Dante downward, and onto the platform. Dante landed with both feet firmly set, pushing against the demon's hand crushing from above. The platform buckled under the pressure, thick cracks escaping from under Dante's feet, scarring the grout and tiles.

Dante gritted his teeth, bearing against Minos' strength. With a flick of his wrist, Dante tilted his sword to the right, letting Minos' fist slide off, but not before delivering a quick slice that cleaved through the demon's hand. The blade cut cleanly through the middle of Minos' hand, passing through the chains and severing the last two fingers. The now-injured right hand scraped across the dirtied floor, leaving behind a small trail of dark red fluid. The demon growled in pain, retreating to the end of the platform opposite his adversary, who grinned triumphantly.

Dante spun the sword in his hand as it shrunk in size, morphing into a three-pointed throwing star. He wound his hand back and then swept it forward, unleashing a large, blue disc of angelic energy from the throwing blade he held. Minos slammed his limp left hand down, smashing the disc against the floor. As Minos picked his hand back up, Dante leapt on top of it, piercing through the back of the hand and pinning it to the platform with his silvery blade.

"Stick around for bit, Minos!" Dante called, twisting the sword in the demon's hand.

Dante pulled his shotgun from underneath his coat, and blasted Minos' torso with buckshot. Black ink sprayed out from his toga, mixing in with specks of demonic flesh and blood that exploded from Minos' chest. The demon wailed, swiping his tail forward to whip Dante. The devil hunter, more prepared than the first time, took the blow from Minos' tail while holding Rebellion's broad side along his body to take the brunt of the hit. Dante, firmly gripping his sword, flew off Minos' hand and away into the hellish storm surrounding their small battlefield.

Dante righted himself in the air, holding his sword out as it extended and curved into a glimmering blue scythe. In his other hand, gold streams of magic funneled from his arm and into the shotgun's frame. Dante soared past another floating pillar made from debris, and then hooked it with the inside of Osiris' arched blade. Dante's momentum threw him into a spin about the pillar, turning him right back around. Unhooking from the column as the scythe returned to its sword form, Dante slingshotted himself right back towards Minos, where he landed feet first on his skull-like cheekbones.

"Time for the money shot!" Dante yelled, shoving the bore of the energized shotgun into Minos' deep eye socket.

Dante pulled the trigger, firing a charged ball of energy into his adversary's eye before he jumped off, flipping backwards down onto the platform. Minos fruitlessly pawed at his eye with his damaged hands, he could see the unstable ball of energy stuck to his eye. A flash erupted from Minos' brow, consuming the left side of his skull in a fiery burst. Minos fell to his knees, screaming in pain, his hands catching a flood of ichor that poured from his skull.

The floor quaked, and the hellish winds and crimson colored storm clouds weakened, stuttering into an uneasy calm while debris that flew around the area collected haphazardly on the platform. The significantly injured Minos was losing control of his Limbo pocket, and this would be the Order's chance to find out what was going on in the city.

"Hey, Kat! Now's a good time to get everyone out of the building! Meet me in exam room seven when you're done!" Dante called, using his extraplanar abilities to hail his companion from across the dimensional veil.

The fire alarm blared through the empty hallways as Kat and Trish surreptitiously made their way to the examination room. The halls were empty with Trish having pulled the alarm to evacuate staff and patients, and all that remained were the two women. As they reached the exam room's door, Trish took front while Kat scanned down the end of each of the halls, making sure no stragglers stole a glance at them. Trish pulled her pistol from its holster and held onto the door's handle, pressing her shoulder up against the door.

"Are you ready? The fire alarm should give us enough time to interrogate Minos and still make it out without anyone seeing us," Trish checked.

The witch Kat nodded her head in response, and Trish turned the handle, immediately smashing the door wide open with a shoulder check. The officer swiftly entered the room with wide steps, her firearm raised and sweeping through the enclosed area. There was no one, no Dante, no Minos, just an empty room with dirtied tiles and a pristine mirror.

"Dante…?" Trish holstered her sidearm. "Where are you?"

The sound of scuffling arose from behind the mirror. A deep grunt and a wail of pain followed. The low thud of blows landing on a body, and indiscernible yelling became louder. The mirror shook once, then twice, then thrice. The mirror shattered as a portly man flew through it, tumbling through the air along with shards of glass both large and small. Trish slid to the right, and Kat backed up against the closed door. The chubby fellow landed on the floor, and Dante stepped over the frame of the broken mirror, rotating his shoulder.

"Ladies…say hello to Minos," Dante said.

Minos' human vessel cowered on the floor, his left eye horribly bloodshot, with blood and Malice leaking from the socket. Minos deep voice and demonic form betrayed the human vessel that kept him tethered to the human world - a stocky, balding man dressed in the average blue collar uniform of a dress shirt and tie.

"Kat, throw down a ward. Don't want him opening up his Limbo pocket again," Dante ordered, looming over Minos.

Kat nodded, pulling a spray can from her belt and quickly beginning to paint a red circle on the dirtied floor around Dante and Minos' beaten vessel. She did her best to brush aside broken glass as she completed the circle, then moving on to form squares inside the ward.

"Alright," Dante said with gritted teeth, kneeling on top of Minos. "You had a lot of power running through this place, a lotta souls - how'd you get 'em all?"

"What…? I…Mundus is the one who does that! Not me!" Minos cried.

Kat shook her spray can after finishing the larger portions of the glyph, proceeding onto the smaller characters that lined its circumference.

"Bullshit! Mundus is _gone_, and souls are still getting sucked around here. We _know_ that only a demon king can steal souls against a person's will, so how the hell are _you_ doing it?! Are you a demon king?!" Dante yelled, grabbing Minos by the collar.

"No! I wasn't…as high up in the hierarchy, I swear!" Minos said, trembling.

"C'mon you pudgy fuck, talk! How are you sucking souls if you're not a demon king?" Dante demanded, gripping Minos' tie and wrapping his hands about the man's neck.

"There's a…a…a lawyer…he's been helping me for over a year now…we've been skimming souls off the top of the cut we gave to Mundus. Now that he's out of the picture…AH! Now that he's gone, we've been keeping them all! AH STOP!" Minos cried.

"What's his name?! How were you _doing it_?!" Dante growled, tightening his hands around Minos' throat.

Minos struggled, flailing helplessly within Dante's inhuman grasp, and brushing shards of glass across the floor.

"Dante stop! He can't answer if you're choking him," Trish said, setting a hand on Dante's shoulder.

Dante glared at Trish, and she could see his pupils starting to glow a dull red.

Minos turned his head to the side and gasped for air, noticing a larger piece of broken mirror he had pushed away during his struggle. A red line was painted on it, which would have matched up with the warding glyph Kat had hastily painted before. However, the painted shard was far from the rest of the ward, leaving an incomplete circle on the floor.

This was his last chance.

Minos let out a labored yell, and a wave of anger pushed out from his chest. The blast sent Dante, Trish, and Kat away. Trish slammed into a side wall, Kat was shoved backward into the door, and Dante fell against the frame of the broken mirror. The Limbo pocket was weak, with only a subtle wave of oppression emanating from Minos, while some of the tiles listlessly floated inches above the floors and walls. It seemed as though they were only halfway between Limbo and the human world. When Dante climbed to his feet, Minos' vessel stood huddled behind Kat, whom he held by the throat with one hand.

"Not another step!" Minos' hissed. "One more…and I slice her neck open!"

Minos raised his other hand, pressing claw-like nails on his index and middle fingers into Kat's neck. Dante looked to his left, where Trish sat against the wall, seemingly doubled over in pain, gasping and coughing, wincing with each small motion she took. There was no way she had the constitution to do anything.

Dante suddenly felt helpless. Confronted by Minos in that tiny little room, once again Dante was a child, powerless against what oppressed him.

He couldn't stand it. Not this time. He wouldn't let history repeat.

Dante clenched his teeth, letting a deep sigh escape from his nostrils as he relinquished himself to the fury burning him from within. Dante took a step forward, crushing glass beneath his boot as he unleashed his own wave of anger, which easily eclipsed Minos'. The sound of breaking glass was sustained, a minute clap stretched out through time. Dante's body quickly transformed; his hands turning to claws, his coat tightening to his frame like a second skin, and the hood rising up to consume his head, leaving behind a featureless face with only a toothy grin.

The man-demon growled lowly, raising the silver sword in his hands as he rushed forward. Minos wouldn't have time to react, and how could he? He was in the man-demon's world now. Rebellion sang through the air as the man-demon swung it horizontally from the left, level with his shoulders. The blade met little resistance when it found the skin on the side of Minos' neck, and passed through it quite easily. The muscle was slightly tougher, but the blade slowly cleaved through that, too. In this world of crawling time, the man-demon could feel each of the veins giving way to tension as his blade passed through them, and the spine separated with a satisfying snap. A gasp of air escaped the esophagus as it was rent open. The other side of the neck was no different, and the man-demon relished in the distinct visceral nature of this stretched moment in time.

The man-demon's blade stopped as it pressed against Kat's neck, and the world returned to its natural time. All the broken glass, along many loose tiles from the floor shot to the right wall, carried violently by the force of the man-demon's sword swing like a blast of air. Minos' vessel's body fell limp as his head rolled off his shoulders, his slapdash Limbo pocket quickly collapsing as well. Kat yelped, feeling the blood-warmed blade against her neck as the man-demon stood perfectly, unnervingly still.

"Dante…?" Kat stammered. "It's okay…it's me. It's Kat."

The man-demon's shoulders shook as they rose up for a deep breath, and a low, guttural pant escaped from his mouth. His lone, bloodshot eye, however, did not move, staying set on Kat's fear-stricken face. Kat could feel the blade slowly pressing harder into her neck.

"Dante…please, it's over," Kat muttered.

"DANTE!" Trish cried out. "Dante…STOP!"

The man-demon's gaze darted to his left. Trish sat leaning against the wall, breathing heavily, but this time holding her pistol with trembling hands. She tried to sight in, but her vision was blurry, and her hold unsteady. The man-demon lowered his blade from Kat's neck, and she fell to the floor with weak knees, breathing a sigh of relief for herself, but all the more concerned about Trish, who had the man-demon's full attention.

"Grrraaaaaangerusssss…" the man-demon growled, taking a step toward Trish.

His footsteps were heavy, heavier than they should have been, carrying the weight of an insurmountable anger. Trish pulled the trigger, spraying bullets into the man-demon's chest. Rounds flew past his body, cracking the wall beyond him, while others pierced his torso, splashing into his flesh like raindrops on water's surface. He paid the shots no heed, and continued lumbering towards the incapacitated Trish. With a swipe of his sword, he slapped Trish's pistol from her weakened hands.

"Dante no!" Kat pleaded, but there was no Dante, only a devilish man driving his twisted body.

The man-demon's head twitched and he soon loomed over Trish. He plunged his sword deep into the wall next to Trish's head, and inched ever closer to the officer.

"Mmmmrrraaaalakiiiim…" the man-demon snarled, his toothy countenance inches from Trish's face.

"Dante…Dante please stop…" Trish whispered, slowly laying a hand across his cheek and staring into his eye.

The man-demon's great mouth opened wide and he growled loudly, covering Trish's face with a steamy breath. The growl slowly turned into a scream, rising in pitch and ferocity. The flesh on the man-demon's head loosened, slowly turning back into a hood as black ichor poured from Dante's face and chest, and onto the cowering Trish, still holding a hand to the young man's cheek. Dante's vision cleared, and he found himself staring into Trish's icy blue eyes.

"Oh shit…I…" Dante fell back from Trish, releasing his grip on Rebellion embedded in the wall.

Dante backed away, sliding across the floor until his back pressed against the opposite wall from Trish, sitting amongst all the debris blasted aside by the man-demon's one swing. Kat jumped to Trish's side to comfort her, and Trish assured the witch that she was recovering easily.

"I'm sorry…I…I didn't…" a frantic Dante stammered, reaching trembling hands into his pockets to get his cigarettes.

With a cigarette lit, he inhaled sharply, smothering the devil inside with a thick gray smoke. It did little this time; he could still feel the man-demon's urges tugging at his soul. Dante's gaze sank down to the floor as he simply apologized repeatedly. Kat and Trish shared a look of concern before turning to Dante from their position in the cleaner side of the room, free of debris made from Dante's scuffle. The devil hunter sat cowed against the far wall, cracks in the tiles behind Dante forming the shape of horns above his head.

Minos' decapitated body trembled, and a swarm of light blue energy escaped it, listlessly fluttering over to Rebellion, still embedded in the wall. In a flash, the sword was gone, and a blue chain topped with a small curved blade lay across the frightened Dante's lap. He paid little attention to it, instead brushing his hood back from his head, running his fingers worriedly thought his hair. His cigarette was almost gone, more a stick of ash than anything now. Dante could think of nothing better to do than slam the back his head against the wall in frustration.

_What's happening to me…?_


	5. Mission 5 Sagacity

Mission 5

[Sagacity]

Dante slapped open the fire exit door in anger, trailed closely behind by Kat and Trish. As they reached the asylum's courtyard, Dante pulled a cigarette to his lips and nervously lit it, inhaling deeply. Firefighters came up to the trio just as Lapis Manalis began to crumble, its top floors caving in. Dante watched as the asylum fell in on itself, feeling a slight sense of elation to know the place that tortured his young self was finally undone.

Trish conversed with the firefighters, assuring them she and her companions were alright, and needed no further attention.

"Are you okay, Dante?" Kat asked, stepping up to Dante.

"Yeah, I'm fuckin' peachy," Dante replied. "I'm turning into a demon…"

Trish stepped away from the firefighters as they turned their attention elsewhere, seeing to the staff and patients crowding around the streets surrounding the asylum.

"What happened back there?" Trish asked.

"I lost control…it's getting harder to reign in whatever it is I'm turning into…" Dante said.

"Like when you stopped those demons before, the night we met," Trish said, nodding.

"Look…I'm really sorry," Dante said, staring honestly into Trish's eyes.

Trish slowly shook her head. "It's okay Dante…I understand that whatever you're going through is tough. We'll need to be more careful, but…we're all okay - that's what matters," she said.

"Looks like I might need to use my Devil Trigger more, though. Minos was right…" Dante hated to utter those words. "…Minos was strong…almost as much as Mundus, maybe more. The Devil Trigger is my trump card, and if what butterchubs said was true, there're a lot of other demons that were stronger than Mundus."

"What? But how?" Kat asked confoundedly.

"Minos said that Mundus was only so strong because of the Hell Gate and Sparda. Mundus got rid of Sparda himself, and then when we took out the Hell Gate, he had nothing left. The guy was smart, but not all that powerful on his own," Dante explained. "And if that _is_ true, I might have to pull that trigger a lot more. I don't wanna do that if it's gonna put people around me in danger."

"There has to be something we can do about it. Maybe we should talk to Phineas…I'm starting to get worried Dante," Kat said.

"Phin? You think there's a cure for this…?" Dante muttered, taking another drag from his cigarette.

"Dante, you're a Nephilim, the rules are different. There _has_ to be something we can do," Kat pleaded. "Phineas has taught us everything we know about demons that we didn't know before, and he taught you about being a Nephilim - he's our best chance."

"Fine…what have I got to lose?" Dante said, finishing off the cigarette in record time, his lungs burning.

"Wait, so what are we going do next?" Trish asked, urging the duo to consider their next move in the turf war.

"What?" Kat asked.

"The _demons_, we have a solid lead on what to do next," Trish explained.

"Oh, right. So Minos was working with some lawyer…" Kat said.

"A demonic lawyer? Well, that certainly narrows it down - they're all a bunch of evil bloodsucking douchebags," Dante growled, shoving his hands in his pockets and pacing back and forth in the courtyard.

"If we look for a place with a lot of demonic influence downtown, we're bound to find something," Kat pondered.

"I can dig into what places have a high crime rate in the business district, chances are that will be where our demon lawyer is," Trish said.

"Alright, well…you guys take care of that; I need to take a walk, clear my head," Dante said, walking near the outside wall of the asylum's grounds.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" The concern in Kat's voice was heavy.

"Yeah…I'll see if I can clean up some scum while I'm out. I'll see you back at the office once I'm ready to meet up with Phin," Dante said, leaping high over the wall in one swift motion, his angelic litheness lifting him through the air.

Kat turned to Trish. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah…I think so." Trish nodded.

"When we got pulled into Limbo…you were…you looked pretty bad," Kat stammered.

"First time in Limbo huh? Guess it hit me pretty hard." Trish shrugged. "Certainly didn't feel pleasant.

"Haven't seen a Limbo cherry pop that bad though, you sure you're okay?" Kat was concerned about everyone, especially since both she and Trish had such a close encounter with the man-demon. Kat couldn't shake the feeling that they had a very real chance of having been cut down by it, especially Trish.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Trish confirmed. "Just need to take it easy for a little bit, before we head back out into the fight."

The man-demon seemed to have an obsession with the officer Portinari, but two points make a line, not a pattern, Kat told herself. Despite that, however, Dante was having trouble controlling the fiend, and something needed to be done.

Thinking back, Kat was sure she had seen the start of it all; Dante's clash with his twin brother, Vergil, who was also the Order's former leader. The brother had divulged his plans for the world in the wake of their triumph over Mundus, and it was something that neither Kat nor Dante could agree with. They fought, and the struggle was fierce to the extent of both Nephilim tapping into higher powers. Dante's Devil Trigger afforded him the strength to best his brother, but in a rage-fueled moment, Dante nearly killed Vergil, only brought back to reason by Kat's pleas.

An injured Vergil disappeared after that, and whenever Dante used his Devil Trigger in subsequent battles against the demons that still existed within the city, she could see it changing. It became more a part of him, and then it began _changing_ him. Suddenly, Dante would disappear, and in his place, the man-demon would fight, seemingly bereft of conscience. Kat refrained from saying anything about it much of the time, but she knew Dante's smoking and drinking habits had been taken up in an attempt to quash the man-demon's bloodlust, which grew with each trigger, and lasted long after the man-demon itself was gone.

Their only hope now was that Phineas, the demon scholar, would have an answer for them.

"Let's head back to the office. I'll get you in touch with some of the Order's members, they'll help you track down that lawyer," Kat said, motioning for them to leave the asylum grounds.

Trish nodded and followed closely behind as they left the courtyard. Kat passed the unseen Divinity Statue, and a soothing sensation washed over her. It was a welcome feeling after the precarious events that led to Minos' demise and the man-demon's wrath. As Trish trailed after the witch, the green light of the statue's hourglass flared again, and the officer slid her lissome fingertips across the statue's body as she passed by.

The demon scholar Phineas was a codger in every sense of the word. While he prided himself on the vast amounts of knowledge he possessed, his intelligence was often betrayed by his eccentricities; he muttered to himself consistently, and would sometimes find himself lost in some random part of the city. Half of his head was replaced by otherworldly gearwork, with his right eye simply a telescopic lens which granted him sight where his blind left eye couldn't.

Dante came across Phineas imprisoned in Bob Barbas' dimensional penitentiary, and in the short time they had been together the old demon guided Dante to untapped powers, and divulged secrets that led to the Demon King Mundus' downfall. After the dimensional Limbo collapsed, Phineas was beside himself in his newfound freedom, and often hid away in the city's parks and quieter regions. Phineas said it was because it helped him think, Dante was almost certain it was because there were less things for him to bump into.

Dante and Kat found Phineas on a small hillside park that overlooked much of the city, a spot he loved coming to later in the day to watch the twilight hours lazily tick by as the sun set.

"I sense trepidation in you, young Master," Phineas said.

"Fuck, Phin, don't call me that," Dante rolled his eyes.

Phineas was always overly-respectful of Dante's heritage, as he knew his mother and father, but the scholar also revered the devil hunter's supernatural ethnicity, feeling that the Nephilim were a race to be respected, instead of hunted into extinction like they were.

"My apologies. What's troubling you, Dante?" the old demon asked.

Dante leaned against the railing, looking out over the continuing reconstruction of Limbo City in the aftermath of Mundus' downtown rampage. Numerous industrial cranes topped buildings, arcing out amidst the city's skyline like gaunt, metallic fingers clawing at the clouds.

"It's okay Dante…if anyone can help, it's Phineas," Kat said, comfortingly.

Dante nodded, clicking his tongue. "I feel like I'm losing control, Phin."

"Of what?" Phineas' one flesh eye perked opened brightly.

"Whatever it is…uh…inside me," Dante muttered.

"Ahh…the devil within, I assume." Phineas nodded.

Dante only looked down towards the street, moving his head up and down so slightly one could miss it if they weren't paying attention.

"What makes you think you're losing control? That devil is part of you. It _is_ you, Dante," Phineas said.

"Yeah, and that's what skeeves me out, okay? It's stronger now, it isn't just some power I'm tapping into anymore. It…changes me. I look like…"

"Like a demon?" Phineas chortled laboriously. "Dear boy…as I said: it's part of you. That physical change you're seeing is the devil inside you coming to fruition."

"Dante is worried because…what if the demon takes over?" Kat interjected for him, since Dante wasn't one to speak quite so freely. "It's gotten a lot more aggressive these days, and it's started to look at the people around it as something else to kill."

Phineas fell silent, and you could hear the gears clicking in his head. He looked squarely at Dante, as if to ask for more information. Dante soon obliged.

"When I fought Vergil, I had to pull that devil out to stop him…but when I did, I nearly killed him. I didn't even care, the sword was in my hand, just going right through his chest, and I just didn't care that he was my brother, I could feel it…all this, like, anger…I was ready to kill him there. If it wasn't for Kat, I probably would have. It's pretty much just gone downhill from there since then." Dante sighed, interlocking his fingers.

"Hm…it is no surprise that you felt a great swell of fury, anger is a powerful force for us demons," Phineas began. "If you remember your time in Limbo before it collapsed, you most likely remember coming across something we demons coveted - Malice. It was all-pervasive in Limbo, and responsible for all that you were forced to overcome when you were taken there.

"Limbo is a demonic dimension comprised of Malice, made as a facsimile of your world where the power of Hell could seep into the very fabric of this reality. Limbo and Malice were the bridge that let the demons bring Hell on Earth."

"This is great and all, but what does this have to do with my problem, Phin?" Dante interrupted.

"From what I know of your past, young Master, you lived a rather…shall we say hedonistic, lifestyle. You harbored much hatred for the demons that hunted you, and cared little for anyone but yourself, correct?" Phineas cocked his clockwork head.

"Yeah, so…?" Dante shrugged.

"Such things are a gateway to Malice. Those same emotions - that decadence, that anger - is what allows humans to be manipulated by demons as well. When I first met you, I helped you gain more power as a Nephilim, but as your heart was so consumed by hatred and vengeance, the devil within was the first to surface. Your soul screamed out to the forces within, and it was that demonic side of you which answered that call, powered by that permeating Malice. Even when unleashing that devil within, you exerted a forceful control on Malice, which was very beneficial for your encounters in Limbo…"

"So what do I do? How can I get rid of it?" Dante turned to Phineas, feeling he was close to his answer.

"You can't get rid of it, Dante. It's a part of you…" Phineas said, shaking his head slowly.

"What, so I'm just fucked, is that it?"

"You can't get rid of the devil within your heart, young Master. You can, however, bring balance to it." Phineas smirked.

"Alright, balance. How?" Dante asked, shifting his weight to lean to his right.

"Nephilim possess the strength of both angels and demons, and while demons rely on Malice for their strength, I believe you could tip the scales in your favor by engendering more of what gives angels their strength - Grace."

"Grace…really?" Dante's brow furrowed, and he tried weakly to hide a chuckle.

"Indeed…you already harness some of it when using the angelic forms of your sword, and as one-half angel, Grace undoubtedly lies somewhere within you as well. It just needs to be cultivated, just as Malice was for much of your life. I believe this is the best option to bring balance to your heart," Phineas concluded.

"So…how am I supposed to do that?" Dante asked, leaning his back against the railing.

"Another factor of what called the devil forth within you may have been that you did so while in Limbo, a place much closer to Hell, full of Malice. If we're to help you find your Grace, you'll have to find a way to get just a little closer to Heaven." Phineas said.

Dante nodded, glancing at Kat, who smiled back at him, seeming quite hopeful of the situation.

"Where do we start then?" Dante asked with a shrug.

"While Limbo was a dimension that bridged Hell and Earth, there also exists a plane that ties _Heaven_ to Earth; Purgatory," Phineas explained.

"God's waiting room, huh?" Dante said, legitimately thinking on the scholar's suggestion.

"But, the city is so closely superimposed with Limbo, how would we get to this Purgatory?" Kat asked.

"Ah, but you see…while Limbo and Purgatory are bridges to Earth, they are also two sides of the _same_ bridge." Phineas held up his hands up, his fingertips touching to create a makeshift bridge with his palms. "Originally, there existed only Purgatory between Heaven and Earth on the Astral Plane, but after God cast out the angelic rebellion, the fallen angels retained their ability to traverse the dimensional bridge, and began slowly twisting the Astral Plane with Malice until Limbo, a separate incarnation, was created."

"So…even though the city is sitting on top of what's left of Limbo, Dante could still potentially get into Purgatory because they pretty much exist in the same place?" Kat checked, processing the information.

"Precisely. While Purgatory is far from grasp in many parts of the city, some spots have most likely already been reclaimed by the angels to once again give them a foothold on Earth," Phineas responded.

Dante asked, "Any idea what those spots could be?"

"Most likely places where one would go to reach out for God," Phineas said simply.

"Great, so…uh…man, I hate church," Dante mumbled.

"When's the last time you went to confessional?" Kat joked.

"I think I had sex in a confessional once…" Dante thought, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"I don't think that counts." Kat said, stifling a chuckle.

"With a girl…not some kid-diddling bishop," Dante assured.

"This may also be the best time for you to begin using your inherent abilities as a Nephilim," Phineas suggested, paying the jovial exchange no heed.

"Like what? Being more angelic?" Dante asked, smirking.

Phineas said, "Nephilim can easily traverse between dimensions, and it is a trait that could serve you well. If you want to gain access to Purgatory, finding a location closer to Heaven and focusing on your angelic side can take you there as easily as one of the witch's portals. In a sense, _you_ young Dante, are a portal yourself."

"Wait…so…he won't need my portals anymore?" Kat muttered, her voice low.

The demon scholar simply nodded, unaware of Kat's concern.

"Look, uh…I'm gonna talk with Phin a bit more. Why don't you head back to the office and see if we've got anything else on that lawyer, maybe check on some holy places or something like that, too. Okay?" Dante said, attempting to offer up other responsibilities to Kat that he valued her for performing.

"Alright, I'll see you back at the office then," Kat replied sullenly before walking back to her car.

Dante watched as she left down the hill. He hated to think that someday Dante wouldn't need her help anymore, simply because of what he was. "So, what's this dimension-hopping stuff you were talking about?" he asked as Kat's car vanished from view.

"Nephilim possess the qualities of both angels and demons, and both themselves carried the ability to move freely between planes. Given some practice, you should be able to quite easily transport yourself to any part of the Astral Plane without outside help," Phineas explained.

"Without _Kat's_ help," Dante said, frowning.

"Yes."

Dante let out an unhappy sigh.

"This is an essential skill for a Nephilim to learn Dante, especially one combatting forces that can freely move between planes as well. You should not hold yourself back simply because you do not want to hurt the witch's feelings," Phineas said.

"She's just been with me through so much…it doesn't seem right to abandon her like that." Dante shook his head.

"You would not be abandoning her, young Master, you would be strengthening yourself. In due time, you would be able to even take others to and from the Astral Plane. I implore you to think of the consequences of handicapping yourself for a human, Dante," Phineas said, slowly clasping his hands together.

Dante stood for a few moments, mulling it over in his head before coming to a conclusion. "So…focus on one part of me, and think about going to Limbo or Purgatory? It's just that easy?"

Phineas smiled. "One would think - you must focus on moving out of this plane of reality, and hold tightly to either the Malice or Grace within you, for they are the keys," Phineas said.

"Alright…I guess I'll give it a try sometime," Dante said with a shrug.

Phineas turned away, looking again out at the sunset. After the centuries locked up as Mundus' political prisoner, seeing the light of the new world was welcoming, and he enjoyed the twilight hours the most; if only he still had the company of the very one who showed him the majesty of such times of day. While Phineas longed for a lost friend, Dante found himself thinking on other things, and felt it best to ask now, while he was there with the one person he knew of who knew _everything_.

"Uh…hey, Phin?" Dante started.

"You have further need of my knowledge, young Nephilim?" Phineas asked.

"Yeah, uh…just a few things I wanted to see if you knew anything about," Dante said.

"Let us walk, Dante," Phineas said, nodding and guiding the devil hunter to walk with him.

"Speaking of angels and all this holy stuff, I've been getting weapons from a lot of demons," Dante started.

"…yes, the power of the blade Rebellion; it absorbs the souls of the fallen, and fashions them into new arms," Phineas said.

"You know about that?" Dante asked, his interest being thoroughly piqued.

Dante had Rebellion for as long as he could remember, and it had been a part of him, appearing in the direst of times during his rough childhood. Not until his escape from Lapis Manalis was he able to call it at will like he could now, appearing from the glyph scarred into his back.

"I should hope I know of it - I designed it for your father," Phineas said with a smile. Dante simply let out a slight "Huh," of surprise.

"He had used it in the uprising that put Mundus on the throne millennia ago," Phineas continued.

"What about that axe I found in Paradise…and the scythe?" Dante asked.

"The scythe was your mothers; she used it during the war against the demons, and it was a common weapon among her choir. The axe, Sparda received by slaying one of demon kings who opposed Mundus, it was his first great victory," Phineas explained, reminiscing happily in the memories of yester-millennia.

"How come I got them, then?" Dante wondered.

"Knowing the dangers that could befall the family, they gave up those weapons. They asked me to convert the weapons into power. Power they left within Paradise, for you and your brother. Your home was a veritable armory," Phineas said.

"So that explains the angel scythe, but…I've been getting other angely-type weapons from some of the demons I killed, what's the deal?" Dante questioned.

"Ah…well, many demons were once fallen angels. Cast out of Heaven, never to see the light of God, they lost their Grace, and filled that void in their hearts with primordial Malice. They were twisted by it into what you know of today."

"You're telling me that ugly slug bitch I curb stomped in the Virility factory was a fucking _angel_?"

Phineas chuckled wryly. "No…many of the monsters, like the Succubus and stygians, were manufactured with demonic magic. The demons at the top of hierarchies however, they were once angels," Phineas clarified.

"How does that explain the angel weapons?" Dante asked.

"Demons were once fallen angels, and some of them have held tightly to their Grace, or at least the feelings associated with it. In Barbas' prison, he spoke much of faith and fealty to the Lord…even though that Lord was the demon king Mundus, that zeal is a common feeling of angels, just as passing judgment is for someone of Minos' caliber," Phineas said. "If a fallen angel can retain those feelings in their heart, it molds their soul into something more angelic, despite how twisted they've become as demons."

"So some of the demons still have a lot of angel in 'em?" Dante asked.

"So to speak," Phineas replied.

"And if even they have a chance of being something a little less demonic…I guess that there's gotta be a chance for me, huh?" Dante pondered.

"I'm a firm believer of being able to choose to be what you want in life. You, my young Master, were simply in need of guidance that your soul desperately required," Phineas said.

Dante nodded slightly, feeling genuinely hopeful of his situation for the first time in…well, probably forever.

"Hey…if those demons were still angelic, then why were they working with Mundus?" Dante asked. "They were evil."

Phineas stopped, turning to the young devil hunter; a sharp grin etched across is aging countenance. "Who said all angels were virtuous?" he asked cryptically.

Dante's brow dipped, and his lip curled trying to come to terms with Phineas' words.


End file.
